Anthimos, just because you are unable to believe it does not mean that Kouroussis is lying. Because that is essentially what you are telling him now. According to him, Chatzidoulis gave him the file and simply told him to refer to it as „my file“. Was it scientifically wrong not to cite a primary source? I imagine so. Does that lead us to question the author’s ethics? Does it diminish his work so much that he should come forward publicly, not just on the forum (hahaha), and apologise? Is he deceiving his customers? Does he not provide anything? Does an imperfect edit make him illiterate? Is his apology not enough? You have not made any substantive comment on the book itself regarding this matter. Either you completely agree, or you do not care and simply want perfection. I find it hard to believe that you have a personal problem with the man. But I can see that, while you are anonymous on the forum—and quite right to be—the criticism you make is obsessive and always undermining. How would you feel if you wrote a book and had someone point out only your mistakes in this way? It is a shame that things have come to this. The forum, which now has far less activity than it used to, should value and embrace such works and critique them with goodwill. Especially when they concern researchers who have… who have, admittedly, contributed something.
Allow me to regard my words as proportionate to the situation—in other words, self-evident to anyone seeking to operate in the world of books.
If you ever study the subject (and how one operates in the world of books), we can talk again.
Until then, it would be better not to speak again…
Even if it did follow an academic standard, if an author failed to cite one of their colleagues, yes, that would be a foul, but they wouldn’t be hanged for it.
And we too are in the world of books, Anthime. But we try to judge a book from many different perspectives. You said once, you said twice, you said three times, you said four times that it contains errors. Yes, it has a few. He’ll correct them in the next edition (as if any book is ever published without mistakes). I’ve written as many as 30 books in the field of physics so far. Well, not one of them was error-free. And I’ve got a whole team of proofreaders behind me, too. Now you’ve found a point where a source wasn’t cited. He’ll correct that as well if he considers it necessary.
Do you have anything positive to say about the book, or haven’t you found anything so far?
Right. I understood some of it—not everything, because I’m not involved in the book trade, except as a buyer and reader.
Thanks anyway for your answer and the clarifications.
I think that somewhere near the beginning of the thread it says congratulations on the new textual discoveries—something like that—and further down that it’s worth having in one’s library if one doesn’t have the first edition.
And then a dozen comments, culminating in mocking and misleading customers. Hahaha
Oh come on, guys, after all these years, it’s getting tiresome.
Anthimos said that he had spotted an omitted reference to a published source. Nothing more (so far).
And Stavros said that it was true and apologised.
Can’t we leave it at that?
And I believe that, in exercising my freedom of expression, I can say it for a fifth time when a new issue arises— a serious ethical issue, and not merely one of the “it has errors” variety. But as for everything I have pointed out overall, what should matter is whether it is true. That, and that alone.
I would not agree with this kind of “heavy-handed” approach, nor with the “equalisation” of positive and negative evaluative judgements. It would also be advisable to distinguish between evaluative judgements and observations concerning various factual, linguistic and ethical matters.
Good evening,
Let me remind everyone that this is the Rebetiko forum. The people who come here and read our posts are interested in gaining knowledge about rebetiko and traditional Greek music.
Of course, the discussion can often revolve around other topics as well, such as the one we are dwelling on here. Ultimately, however, matters such as whether a book about rebetiko contains spelling mistakes, has been properly formatted, or complies with the code of research ethics are of secondary importance to the rebetiko forum, as they do not alter the quality or truth of the knowledge provided about rebetiko.
When these issues repeatedly resurface, they not only tire readers out but also harm our community by overshadowing the quality of the information itself.
Here, Anthimos, I think the discussion about whether Mr Kourousis’s book is written “correctly”, has been edited “properly”, or cites its sources accurately has run its course. It offers the forum’s readers nothing beyond useless noise.
For this reason, from now on, any further post in this thread that deals with anything outside the substance of Mr Kourousis’s book will be deleted, so that we can focus on what matters. This does not restrict any member’s freedom of expression.
Anthimos, if you wish, you can share all this elsewhere (perhaps on a forum for book editors—it might well be quite interesting), but not here.
Thank you all for your understanding.